Greece awards 189 MW of battery storage in third auction

Greece’s Regulatory Authority for Energy, Waste, and Water (RAAEY) has published the results of the country’s third auction for standalone battery energy storage system.

The 200 MW auction is the final phase of a program aiming to subside the development and operation of large-scale, in-front-of-the-meter batteries. The initial program asked for 1 GW of battery capacity to be tendered in three separate procurement exercises of 400 MW, 300 MW and 300 MW. However, in December 2024, Greece downsized the third auction to 200 MW.

The first two auctions concerned projects installed anywhere in Greece, while the third auction involved projects developed in former coal mining regions.

The average subsidy price in the third auction exercise came at €52589.16/MW/year. The lowest successful bid stood at €43927/MW/year, concerning a 25 MW/100 MWh project in the Western Macedonia region. The highest awarded subsidy came at €58773/MW/year and refers to a 7.9 MW/31.6 MWh project located in the same region.

Greek firm Hellenic Renewables, which is a subsidiary of Helleniq Energy, offered the lowest successful bids for two battery projects of 25 MW/100 MWh each. Other Greek firms who were successful at the tender are: PPC Renewables with a 50 MW/200 MWh project; Enerkoplan Ιnvestment with a 25 MW/100 MWh project; Ardassa Energy with a 18 MW/72 MWh battery; Arcadia Storage, which is owned by Eunice, with a 10 MW/40 MWh battery; and Plain Solar with a 7.9 MW/31.6 MWh facility. 

Heliothema Ltd, which is owned by France’s EDF Renewables, was awarded a 10 MW/40 MWh project for €50090/MW/year and Amber Energy, linked to Czech firm Solek Holding, won a further 18 MW/72 MWh battery contract for €54939/MW/year.

Awarded projects will receive contracts-for-difference (CfD) over periods of 10 years. Every year, the government will assess the market earnings of the projects. If the earnings of an installation are lower than the CfD price set in the auction, investors will receive top-up payments to bridge the difference. Conversely, if a project’s earnings exceed the CfD price, the surplus must be returned to the government.

Apart from the CfD support, the awarded projects will also be offered a one-time capital expenditure (capex) subsidy payment. The capex payment in the third auction was set at €200,000/MW.  

In publishing the auction results, the energy regulator set out strict competition rules. These included a clause limiting each bidder to a maximum of 25% of the auctioned capacity. This means that no investor could bid for more than 50 MW in the third auction. Moreover, the third auction could not exceed 200 MW of awarded capacity. RAAEY said some projects had to be excluded from the bidding since they did not adhere to these rules.

Moving forward, Greece is abandoning subsidizing BESS via auctions. Instead, the country has recently launched a new program for 4.7 GW of unsibsidized BESS which will be offered priority grid connections on a merchant basis without subsidy support.